The Billionaire Bargain #3(6)
He shut the door carefully behind him as he left, as if nothing at all had just passed between us, but some part of me wished he would have slammed it instead. At least then I’d know he had some feelings left, that maybe he still cared about me. But clearly he didn’t. What he’d said was true: it was over.
FOUR
Kate had taken one look at the expression on my face and dragged me out of the cafeteria. Now we were in a smoky little dive bar where the cigarette fumes were stronger than a tobacco plantation on fire, hiding at the corner booth with ripped red plastic seats and a nicotine-stained plastic palm tree strategically hiding our faces.
Above us, a blinking white light made me feel like I’d been dragged into a police interrogation as Kate pushed a ginger ale across the table at me—it was the middle of the work day, after all—and demanded that I first drown my sorrows (for whatever value of ‘drown your sorrows’ you can get with a ginger ale) and then spill my guts.
“—and then he was like, ‘so it’s over,’” I finished. “Like I’m being completely unreasonable to just want a cordial work relationship!”
I wasn’t being unreasonable, right? We’d had some good times, but I wanted more and he didn’t, so the best thing for everybody had been for me to pull back, hadn’t it? Why did I have to keep second-guessing myself?
I took a swig from my bottle, trying to pretend the bite of the Jamaican ginger was the bite of alcohol.
“I can’t believe he’s acting like this,” I went on, stoking my rage to avoid thinking about my pain. “Okay, I threw him for a loop, but obviously he’s fine, the company’s going to bounce back fine, why the f*ck can’t he get over it? Why does he have to shut me out? What’s with the f*cking Ice-Man act?”
Kate stirred her own non-alcoholic drink and tried to suppress a small smile.
“What’s with the Mona Lisa face, Katie? And which part of this is amusing to you?”
“Sorry.” She shook her head. “It’s just…don’t you get it? He’s never been dumped before. Ever. He obviously doesn’t enjoy having his pride get kicked in the balls. Especially not in public.”
Kate smirked again but I didn’t have the heart to join in. There was no way I could tell her about the money. Or the fact that I was sending it back in full.
“But the engagement wasn’t even real,” I reminded her. “So why can’t we just go back to having a nice, boring, professional work relationship?”
“Oh, girl,” Kate said sympathetically. “The thing is, you gotta remember that Grant Devlin? The one constant thing about him, besides his hotness? It’s the fact that he’s a huge f*cking *. He always was a huge f*cking *. He always will be a huge f*cking *. Somewhere there’s probably some mystical prophecy about him being the once and future huge. Fucking. Asshole.”
“I know,” I said, shaking my head. “But I really thought I saw another side to him…”
“You saw excitement,” Kate said, placing her hand over mine. “You saw adventure, and money, and hot sex, and you let yourself think that was another side, because you’re a good person and you assume everyone else is as good as you. And you let yourself fall a little in love. But I bet that, before you know it, you’ll realize that you miss the adventure and excitement more than you miss him.”
“Maybe,” I said with a sigh. “But right now, I just miss him.”
And I did, more than I ever thought possible, even after I had admitted to myself that I loved him. I missed the warm of his lips, the shelter of his arms. I missed that slight sly smirk, and that shy boyish grin. I missed the dark storminess of his eyes when he was consumed with passion, and that sunlit sea blue when he was unexpectedly tender. I missed the way he said my name, his voice lingering on the sound of it, long Australian vowels making me sound like a gift, like a treasure, like someone else entirely.
Kate raised an eyebrow imbued with more skepticism than a room full of atheists. “And you don’t miss the whirlwind dashes through gala balls and the limo rides and the designer dresses, not one little bit.”
I rolled my eyes. “Fine, I miss that a little, too. I’m only human!”
But even my self-deprecating humor rang hollow to my ears. What was the point of all that stuff without Grant? He was the one who had made it exciting and fun. He was the one who had made it worthwhile.
“So…any idea on how you’re going to go forward?” Kate breached the subject tentatively, but with a resolute cast to her chin that told me she wasn’t going to let me wriggle out of an answer with vagueness. “Knowing what it’s going to be like from now on, working with Grant.”
I sighed heavily and swigged the last of my ginger ale. “Find another job, I guess,” I said, trying to speak casually and not like the bottom was dropping out of my stomach.
I’d never been married to the idea of staying with Devlin Media Corp forever, but it was the first place I’d really been valued for my education and skills, and not my ability to maintain a smile while scooping fries in a bucket for a screaming customer. And it wouldn’t be easy to find another job in this economy, especially with the reputation I’d given myself to save Grant… A wave of despair threatened to wash over me, but I willed it back. I’d gone into the trenches of job interviews before; I’d do it again.